Marcus Aurelius and the Reed Pen
Dear Friends,
Ever have one of those phone calls? The type where you need to get what you want from a large bureaucratic organization. And what you want falls beyond the rigidly defined bounds of what the call center operator can give you, even though you’re just asking for what you paid for. And you wait on hold, you explain simple concepts, get put on hold again, get transferred to the wrong place, call again, get dropped, call again, ad nauseam. I won’t name names, but I had a series of these calls with an organization recently.
Marcus Aurelius, the last great Roman Emperor and exemplar of modern Stoic fanboys everywhere, had the same exact problem. Oh yes - I’m going to compare myself to good ole Marky Marcus. Because I’m “audacious”.
Marcus had his hands full running the Roman Empire. There were wars to fight, barbarians to keep at bay, a smallpox plague that killed millions, attempted coups to defuse, natural disasters, pressure from the new religion of Christianity, and his own health problems like chronic stomach and chest pain. He had 14 children with his cousin-wife, Faustina, who was praised as a mother and earned a spot on Roman coinage. Most of their children died in his lifetime. His son, Commodus, eventually became emperor but was assassinated shortly into his reign. Such was life in the 100’s.
Through it all, Marcus became a dedicated diarist. His original diary was “altogether falling to pieces” by the time someone got around to copying it in the 900’s. It was also renamed Meditations, because that sounds better than “Untitled document.docx”. It was just a bunch of pages by an emperor writing about his thoughts, feelings, and learnings.
In his diary, Marcus reflected on his many challenges and how he might improve himself. He wrote that we should begin each day by reminding ourselves that we will encounter annoying people throughout the day ahead. Reminding ourselves of their “interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill will, and selfishness”, as William Irvine writes in A Guide to the Good Life, helps steel ourselves against the special kind of pain involved in dealing with people who stand in our way. Remember: Marcus was the freakin’ emperor and he still had to deal with morons every day.
Marcus also didn’t have the luxury of laptops, notebooks, or ballpoint pens. Quill pens didn’t even appear until centuries later. He probably used a pen made out of a reed to painstakingly record his thoughts. I bet the equivalent of an ancient Roman junk-drawer was filled with mostly worn out yet marginally useful reed pens and metal styli.
On the other hand, Marcus didn’t have to deal with call centers, modern-day bureaucracies, or the surfeit of USB to Micro-USB cables that I can’t bring myself to throw out.
As I waited on the phone, I listened to the hold music while shuffling about my house, doing minor chores. The call length marched onward, second by second, as I glanced at my phone screen in disbelief. The music continued to warble out of my earpiece. It wore me down. It mocked me. Nobody cared. Well, two can play this game. I can out-wait and out-annoy anyone. The world is my teacher and I learn from the best.
I like to imagine Marcus huddled in his tent, safe from the barbarians (for now), pouring out his thoughts onto papyrus. He wasn’t trying to write a book. He was just trying to get through the day. Hey, if it worked for a Roman Emperor, it works for me too.
Keep Going,
Geoff
Notes
Marcus Aurelius was the last “good” emperor of Rome. He probably wrote Meditations while planning military campaigns.
William Irvine helped popularize modern Stoicism with A Guide to the Good Life, among others.
Image By Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75950538
Parting Thoughts
ChatGPT insisted that Marcus Aurelius used a quill pen, however unlikely that is. On the other hand, it was helpful in generating the overall list of challenges he faced as an easy to read list.
Picard, The abominable sequel to Star Trek: The Next Generation has inexplicably begun its 3rd season. I wonder if AI will give me what I want: a never-ending series of Next Generation episodes using the likenesses of the characters and the world they inhabit. How long until the licensing becomes more difficult than the technology?